The present invention relates to field emitters, particularly to field emission cathodes for flat panel displays, and more particularly to processes for fabricating field emitting points in a gated field emitter structure.
Flat panel displays are forecast to be a 10-20 billion dollar per year market by the turn of the century. Currently the flat panel displays primarily involve active matrix liquid crystals. Flat panel displays can be fabricated using field emission cathodes. Field emission is one of the leading contenders to replace today's active matrix liquid crystal displays and capture the bulk of this market.
Currently field emitters are fabricated using vacuum deposition. This process involves etching an opening in the gate metal and the dielectric down to the cathode or resistor layer, and then metal is plated onto the resistor layer which forms a pointed emitter on the resistor layer, thus producing a field emission cathode.